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 THE SITUATION 
 
 AN ADDRESS DELIVERED 
 
 AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF 
 
 The National Civil-Service Reform League, 
 
 AUGUST 4, 1886 , 
 
 BY 
 
 HON. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR THE 
 
 NATIONAL CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM LEAGUE, 
 1886. 
 
Publications of the National League. 
 
 Proceedings at the Annual Meeting of the National Civil-Service 
 
 Reform League, 1882, with address by George William Curtis. 
 
 Per copy, 10 cts. 
 
 The same for 1883. 
 
 Per 100, 
 
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 The same for 1885. 
 
 Per copy, 10 cts. 
 
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 The same for 1886. 
 
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 Constitution of the National Civil-Service Reform League. 
 
 Also a few copies of some early publications. 
 
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THE SITUATION 
 
 i 
 
 AN ADDRESS DELIVERED 
 
 AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF 
 
 The National Civil-Service Reform League, 
 
 AUGUST 4 , 1SS6, 
 
 BY 
 
 HON. GEORGE WILLIAM GURUS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR THE 
 
 NATIONAL CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM LEAGUE, 
 1886 . 
 

 \ 
 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 WILLIAM S. GOTTSBERGER 
 

 THE SITUATION. 
 
 The earliest historic legend of the State in which we are 
 assembled is that of the Indian greeting to Roger Williams.. As 
 he coasted along the western shore of the Seekonk river at the 
 head of the bay, he heard suddenly a greeting in his native 
 tongue. “ What cheer? Netop, what cheer?” It was the 
 voice of friendly Indians welcoming him to the State that he 
 founded, and which, remembering his courage and his faith, has 
 wisely chosen for its emblem the anchor, and for its legend, the 
 words, “ in God we hope.” If now mindful of the cause which 
 brings us to the shores of Narragansett bay, we should ask each 
 other of Civil-Service Reform, what cheer brothers, what cheer ? 
 I, for one, should answer promptly, better and better cheer; 
 such cheer, indeed, as no association like ours ever enjoyed at its 
 sixth annual meeting; never were the skies so bright, never was 
 the future so fair. 
 
 I am fully aware of the other view which is vociferously 
 urged. I read every day in some newspaper that Civil-Service 
 Reform is now at last finally dead. But I have heard it so often 
 and have been so constantly bidden to the obsequies, that I am 
 very skeptical of its actual decease. It is now twenty years since 
 that worthy son of Rhode Island, Thomas Allen Jenckes, opened 
 
 , 
 
4 
 
 in Congress the great debate for reform, and at least half a dozen 
 times since that happy day I have heard that reform was as dead 
 as the alien and sedition laws of the United States bank. When 
 Congress refused the appropriation to President Grant I was 
 sympathetically assured that the pretty bubble had burst. When 
 President Hayes felt that his views were those of a small minority, 
 but an exceedingly awkward squad for the party managers, and 
 his action accordingly was very cautious, it was announced again 
 that the humbug was exploded. When the House of Representa¬ 
 tives in 1882 for half an hour merrily kicked and cuffed reform 
 and cut down the appropriation which President Arthur had 
 asked, it was evident to many delighted observers that Sunday- 
 school politics were “ played out.” When a large body of Civil 
 Service Reformers supported Mr. Cleveland for the presidency, 
 it was angrily alleged that reform was betrayed and murdered in 
 the house of its false friends. When inexplicable appointments, 
 and arbitrary removals, and an apparent want of consistent 
 adherence to principle have been pointed out uuder the present 
 administration, the situation has been described as a wild 
 saturnalia of spoils around the corpse of reform. Indeed one 
 thing of which in many willing minds there has been no doubt 
 ever since the reform was born, is that reform is dead. If it were 
 so, it would certainly prove that death loves a shining mark, and 
 he is supposed to be a sure marksman. But this time he has 
 missed. 
 
 Public opinion upon this subject was never so aroused, so 
 enlightened, and so determined. The wholesome purpose and 
 sound reason of reform were never so generally and so clearly 
 perceived, and it was never so plainly a pressing public question. 
 
s 
 
 There was never such a rattling of amazement and consternation 
 among the dry bones of Bourbon party politics; never such a 
 hysterical protestation upon the part' of peddlers of patronage 
 that the deluge would not be much of a shower after all; never 
 such shuddering certainty in the minds of political money 
 changers, that the people will presently scourge them with wrath 
 out of the temple of liberty. Political assessments, the blackmail 
 imposed by party freebooters upon the employes of the people, 
 have been in great part suppressed, and have been permanently 
 stigmatized as despicable. Arbitrary removals which were the 
 accepted and unquestioned practice of the public service, have not 
 ceased, indeed, but they are now instantly challenged and 
 exposed, and there is a distinct public sense of wrong in the act 
 and a disposition to deal rigorously with any administration which 
 is guilty of the offence. The recent debates in Congress upon 
 the subject of reform, the eloquent silence of many leaders, no 
 less than the hostile speech of others; the eagerness on one side 
 to prove falsity to reform against the other, and the recrimination 
 that the pot when in power had been as black as it now 
 alleged the administration kettle to be; the acrimony, the sullen¬ 
 ness, the avoidance of the vote on one side; the banter, the 
 accusation, and the sarcasm on the other, all showed in that 
 assembly, which talks always with its ear turned toward the 
 people, a universal consciousness that it was dealing with a ques¬ 
 tion in which the country was profoundly interested, and which 
 would exert a powerful influence upon the election. 
 
 It was quite right. The pricked bubble, the exploded hum- 
 Dug, the played out Sunday school game, the aristocratic device, 
 the monarchical plot, the trick to retain Republicans in office, the 
 
6 
 
 un-American reform, slain and thrice slain, and dead as the Bank 
 or the Embargo, will be for the first time a leading question in 
 the Congressional elections of this year. On one side support of 
 the administration will mean support of reform; on the other, 
 opposition to the administration will mean denunciation of its 
 infidelity to reform. The democratic candidate this year need 
 not protest the soundness of his views upon State sovereignty and 
 a revision of the tariff, nor solemnly affirm his Jeffersonian 
 principles, but he must announce his approval or disapproval of 
 the President’s course and so define distinctly his position upon 
 reform. The Republican need not dilate upon protection and a 
 gold standard, a free ballot and a fair count; but while he is 
 faithful to Republican traditions he must declare unequivocally 
 for appointments by proved merit, and in an open and free com¬ 
 petition. Let the Democratic candidate who holds with Senator 
 Vance that reform is unconstitutional and un-Democratic, and 
 consequently that the President betrays his trust in tolerating 
 Republicans in the Civil Service, say so frankly and appeal for 
 judgment. Let the Republican candidate who holds with Senator 
 Ingalls that the Civil Service is spoils, that the spoils belong to 
 the victors, and that Republicans ought to scorn to serve the 
 country under a Democratic administration, say with equal frank¬ 
 ness that the President betrays his party trust if he does not turn 
 out Republicans. If the nominating conventions should omit to 
 secure such an expression from candidates for Congress the Na¬ 
 tional Reform League will undertake to supply the omission. 
 At last, said Wendell Phillips in i860, after thirty years of anti¬ 
 slavery agitation,—at last the slave has elected a President of the 
 United States. In 1882 at the annual meeting of this League 
 
7 
 
 it resolved that for the first time candidates for Congress should 
 be asked to express their views upon reform; and now after a 
 short but vigorous agitation of four years it is evident that under 
 the necessary conditions of the election of this autumn Civil-Ser¬ 
 vice reform will be a distinct issue in the election of the Congress 
 of the United States. 
 
 It is by such facts and such a situation that the progress of 
 reform is to be estimated. Inconsistencies and failures in the 
 practical enforcement of the principle may be deplored, but the 
 advance of reform itself is now beyond the control of any ad¬ 
 ministration. This year or another year may be a bad year for 
 fruit, but none the less the fruit trees are rooted fast in a kindly 
 soil, and abundant and noble fruit is sure. The important ques¬ 
 tion is not whether this or that executive officer respects the law, 
 but whether the public mind is interested and aroused. The 
 prosperity of reform lies in the condition of public opinion. 
 Every good reform is a public conviction before it is a law, and 
 the first demonstration of active and serious opposition is the 
 unfailing sign that, in the language of religious revivals, the public 
 mind is under conviction. In my first address before the League, 
 four years ago, I said that the battle with the spoils system had 
 begun in earnest. In its nature it must be an obstinate and 
 strenuous contest. We are in the midst of it now. The very 
 vigor of the fight shows the strength both of the reform sentiment 
 and of the spoils tradition. We have never anticipated, I am 
 sure, an undisputed victory. We have never supposed that we 
 should march as on parade, with the bands playing gaily, straight 
 across the field of battle. We know too well the power of the 
 evil entrenched in tradition and prejudice and ignorance and fierce 
 
8 
 
 party spirit to expect that the acts of any officer or the course of 
 any administration which was not especially elected upon the 
 reform issue and for the purpose of reform, however friendly to 
 reform they might be, would be perfectly consistent and reasonable 
 and free from reproach. In estimating the situation we do not 
 accept on the one hand without qualification praise of its own 
 administration from a party which, as a party, has shown little 
 sympathy with the distinctive policy of the executive, nor on the 
 other hand can we heed denunciation of the reform course of the 
 administration proceeding from the opposition party, stimulated 
 by party spirit for a party purpose, and not intended to promote 
 reform. 
 
 This League is the only organized and authentic national 
 representative of the reform sentiment. I challenge any man to 
 show that it has in any degree or at any time betrayed the trust 
 voluntarily assumed by it, with the approval of the locally 
 organized friends of reform, of honestly and adequately repre¬ 
 senting that sentiment, and its criticisms and demands upon 
 political parties and public men. The League has pandered to 
 no personal ambition, to no party purpose. It has been no man’s 
 instrument nor has it been the organ of any faction. Upon the 
 late party change ot administration, on behalf of the friends of 
 reform and in the public interest the League addressed the newly- 
 elected President earnestly commending to him the interests of 
 reform, and in a forcible, unequivocal and patriotic strain he 
 responded, expressing the sympathy with the movement which he 
 had practically proved as Governor of New York, pledging 
 himself to the enforcement of the reform law in good faith, and 
 to an observance of its spirit in selections for appointment beyond 
 
9 
 
 its range. A year and five months of his administration have now 
 passed, and the time has arrived when a general survey of its 
 action npon this subject and of the condition of reform under his 
 administration is practicable and desirable. The Executive Com¬ 
 mittee of the League, therefore, recently appointed a Committee 
 of which I have the honor to be Chairman, charged with the duty 
 of reporting, first, concerning the enforcement and operation of 
 the National Civil-Service law : second, concerning the principles 
 and methods followed by the administration in making appoint¬ 
 ments, removals, and suspensions: and third, concerning the pro¬ 
 gress of the reformed system in state and municipal governments. 
 The report of the committee will naturally embrace some of the 
 topics to which I should otherwise allude in this address. But I 
 shall leave to that report of eminent representatives of the cause 
 from various parts of the country to state authoritatively the judg¬ 
 ment of the League upon the general course of the administration 
 as affecting Civil-Service Reform. 
 
 Apart from the details of the enforcement of the law and of 
 executive action in regard to appointments and removals, there 
 are three chief points of interest in the reform history of the year. 
 First, the effort in Congress to annul the national law; second, 
 the effort to destroy the efficiency of the State law in Massachus¬ 
 etts : and third, the introduction of the reform bill of Mr. 
 Edmunds. The direct assault to repeal the national law failed in 
 both houses of Congress. But the efforts at direct repeal were 
 only rockets thrown up from a sinking ship. They served merely 
 to cast a momentary light upon despair. The serious attack was 
 of another kind. It was a proposition to make the payment of 
 the salary of the Civil-Service Commissioners contingent upon a 
 
IO 
 
 change of rules by the President which would abolish competition 
 and facilitate partisan appointment. It was an ingenious scheme 
 to rebuke the President, to discredit the Civil-Service Commission, 
 and to nullify the reform law. The fact that it was an attack by 
 indirection, sure if it did not prosper to be disposed of by a point 
 of order and without a record of the vote, showed that the leaders 
 doubted its success. But they were willing to try the assault in 
 order to prove their own hostility to the President and to show 
 to their constituents that they were guiltless of reform and would 
 gladly distribute spoils if only they could. In this last purpose 
 the effect succeeded, but not in rebuking the President nor in 
 discrediting the Commission. 
 
 It is unfortunate that the cunning method of the attack pre¬ 
 vented a vote. But even had there been a unanimous adverse 
 vote it would have shown not that the House is an assembly of 
 reformers, but only that representatives are aware of the quality 
 and extent of the reform sentiment in the country. How little 
 the undoubted desire of a great and intelligent public sentiment 
 practically and permanently to establish the reformed system 
 really animates Congress is shown by the little tricks that the 
 House tolerated in the appropriation bill to evade the reform law. 
 On the 17th of June, on the motion of Mr. Randall, the House 
 of Representatives reduced the number of clerks within the 
 classified service in the Patent Office by thirty, and increased the 
 number of skilled laborers at $840 a year from sixty-two to 
 ninety-two. The object was evident. Examinations are not 
 held for clerkships of less than an annual value of $900. The 
 so-called skilled laborers of the Patent Office, though employed 
 chiefly on clerical work, have not been treated as within the 
 
II 
 
 classified service, although probably they fall within it. The 
 amendment was passed by the House without a division, and 
 was accepted by the Senate. Congress thus snatched a few small 
 places out of the classified service and threw them upon the heap 
 of spoils. The plea is that a few thousands of dollars are saved. 
 The result is that the public service loses trained capacity, the law 
 is evaded, the public offices are demoralized, and Congress is 
 disgraced by a petty trick. 
 
 Such a trick would be impossible were there a sincere desire 
 in Congress to secure reform. But there was no positive reform 
 legislation during the session, and nothing in the action of either 
 House showed any serious interest in the subject. Senator 
 Hampton’s bill making it a misdemeanor for a Senator or Repre¬ 
 sentative to recommend or solicit appointments; Mr. Willis’ to 
 repeal the four years’ law; Mr. Long’s to repeal the tenure of 
 office act; Mr. Cutcheon’s for a bureau of Civil-Service appoint 
 ments; Mr. Bayne’s for the election of certain officers by the 
 people; Mr. Cox’s for an equitable classification and compensa¬ 
 tion of certain officers, were the other more prominent proposi¬ 
 tions affecting the Civil Service which were introduced. Some 
 sleep in committee, some were reported, none have become laws. 
 Whatever may be the assertion of party managers, nothing shows 
 so conclusively that reform is in no proper sense the policy of 
 either of the great parties as the course of Congress. No leader 
 in either House is an aggressive Civil-Service Reformer. No 
 Senator or Representative has proposed to extend the scope of 
 the reform law. Congress, indeed, is plainly conscious of the 
 public interest, and of the rapidly increasing pressure of the 
 question. But it is both apgry and bewildered. The shepherds 
 
12 
 
 are in the fog and hate to try the upward path, and the sheep can 
 only bleat plaintively for the lost pastures of patronage. 
 
 But while the negative conduct of Congress signally illus¬ 
 trates the indifference of party politicians, the action of one of 
 the chief bureaus of administration in the Treasury Department 
 happily illustrates the results of sincere, intelligent, and courage¬ 
 ous fidelity to reform. The bureau of printing and engraving 
 controls more patronage of places not included in the classified 
 service than all the other Treasury bureaus combined. It has 
 been notorious as the refuge of parasites of the most unscrupulous 
 spoilsmen, and an investigating committee of experts in the 
 Treasury of the same party with the chief part of the force 
 employed in the bureau, reported a few years ago that the vicious 
 circle of lavish appropriation and of appointment by political 
 influence had led to the employment of a force which in some 
 divisions was twice and in others three times as large as was 
 necessary, and that more than half the force in the bureau might 
 be dispensed with. Soon after his inauguration President 
 Cleveland appointed the chairman of this committee to be chief 
 of the bureau. During the first thirteen months of his control, 
 ending on the first of July, there have been but seven permanent 
 original appointments, all of which were to places that it was 
 absolutely necessary to fill. Three persons also have been 
 appointed in the place of relatives who had broken down in the 
 service, and fifteen of the most deserving of the employes who had 
 been discharged in order to reduce the force have been recalled to 
 the service as they were needed. No person has been discharged 
 for political reasons, or to make place for another. Since the first 
 of March,.1885, the force of the bureau has been reduced by three 
 
i3 
 
 hundred persons. Of the appropriations made for its support for 
 the fiscal year 1885 $73,000 were returned to the Treasury 
 unused, and there will - be an estimated saving of at least 
 $175,000 in the appropriation for 1886, making an aggregate 
 saving of about $250,000 in this single branch of the Depart¬ 
 ment under this administration, and all that has been done has 
 received the most cordial support of Mr. Manning, the Secretary 
 of the Treasury. This is Civil-Service Reform. This bureau 
 is what every bureau in the public service might become with 
 incalculable advantage to the country, to political morality, and 
 to the true function of party in a republic, which is not to dis¬ 
 tribute patronage but to determine policy. But such a beneficient 
 and remarkable administration of an office is impossible except 
 upon the condition that happily exists in this bureau. There 
 must be at the head of the office the same thorough belief in 
 reform, the same ability and intelligence and courage to enforce it 
 which distinguish the head of the Bureau of Printing and 
 Engraving, one of the earliest and most efficient friends of 
 reform in the country, Mr. Edward O. Graves. 
 
 I can only mention the second point, the persistent and 
 significant effort of the Massachusetts Legislature, by an over¬ 
 whelming majority, practically to repeal the reform law of that 
 State — an effort which was eloquently and indignantly opposed 
 by every veteran who took part in the debate, except the author 
 of the bill, and which was happily baffled by the forcible and 
 conclusive veto of Governor Robinson. The frank and earnest 
 opposition of the veterans proved that it is a gross dishopor to 
 the men who offered their lives in defense of a Union founded 
 upon equal rights and equal laws to assert that not content with 
 
14 
 
 the consciousness of duty well done, and with the national 
 gratitude manifested in pensions, in homes and hospitals, and 
 in friendly preference wherever preference is justifiable, they 
 demand the repeal of equal laws carefully designed to promote 
 the general welfare and universally acknowledged to be effective 
 to that end. It was the veterans in the Massachusetts Legisla¬ 
 ture who opposed the repeal of the reform law, not the politicians 
 who pressed it, who truly represented the spirit which inspired 
 the soldier and sailor of the Union from Fort Sumter to 
 Appomattox, from Dupont and Ward to Farragut and Porter. 
 
 The third chief incident in the annals of reform for the year 
 is the bill recently introduced in the Senate by Senator Edmunds. 
 It is a bill of great importance, into the general discussion of 
 which I cannot now enter. But two of its provisions demand 
 our most careful attention, for while this League seeks the repeal 
 of the four years’ law, the Edmunds bill proposes to re-enact it; 
 and while the League would leave the power of removal to the 
 appointing officer and destroy the motives for its unjust exercise, 
 the Edmunds bill would confer that power upon the United States 
 Judges. The passage of this bill would confirm and perpetuate 
 one of the most mischievous abuses in the government. Miss 
 Salmon, in her History of the Appointing Power of the President, 
 is not extravagant in saying of the four years’ law, “ Never in the 
 whole history of the legislation of a hundred years affecting the 
 appointing power has so disastrous a measure been enacted.” It 
 practically places the whole body of important subordinate 
 offices, upon which depends the vast ramification of minor 
 employments, at the disposal of the President during his term. 
 It enables him to change the entire force of the Civil Service 
 
i5 
 
 without the odium of arbitrary removal. It was, indeed, the 
 four years’ law that introduced the practice of such removals and 
 began the sophistication' and corruption of public sentiment 
 which are revealed in the familiar assertion that a clean partisan 
 sweep of the public service is the intentional and logical result 
 of an election. The truth is otherwise. Mr. Randall, the 
 biographer of Jefferson and as strong an anti-Federalist, admits 
 that even after Jefferson’s election minor offices were understood 
 to be held upon the constitutional tenure of good conduct, and 
 Mr. Calhoun, in 1835, states that arbitrary removals were of 
 recent date, that is since 1820 when the four years’ law was 
 passed. Mr. Benton said truly that the expiration of the term 
 was regarded as the creation of a vacancy to be filled by a new 
 appointment, and in 1826, six years after the passage of the law, 
 the select committee of the Senate recommended its repeal 
 because the law operated against its own intent and served to 
 turn out faithful officers instead of retaining them. 
 
 The forecast of Jefferson and Madison in regard to the 
 mischievous results of the four years’ law have been amply 
 verified by experience. It has been one of the great bulwarks of 
 the spoils system and has been vigorously defended by every party 
 buccaneer. Even when there has been no party change of 
 administration the vacation of the offices by the expiration of the 
 term has opened the opportunity for gratifying factional feeling. 
 In 1882 I pointed out that of 825 officers whose terms had 
 expired in nine months of the late administration nearly half had 
 been dropped from the serviee. If 825 offices, nearly one-quar¬ 
 ter of the 3,400 or 3,500 subject to executive nomination, and 
 filled by members of his own party, had not been vacated by law 
 
i6 
 
 within the space of nine months is it probable that the President 
 would have vacated them within that time either by his own act 
 or by an appeal to a Judge ? Is it conceivable that of those 825 
 officers nearly one-haif were unfit for their positions ? Is it 
 doubtful that the most desperate and unscrupulous of partisans 
 in every political contest are officers who know that the chance 
 of their own support and that of their families depends upon the 
 result of an election. Manly independence and self-respect must 
 be necessarily destroyed and the public service consequently 
 demoralized by the knowledge that honesty and ability and 
 experience and industry and efficiency will be of no avail to 
 retain men in their employments if a party administration or the 
 factional control of their own party should change at the end of 
 four years. A limited term for the minor appointive offices is a 
 direct incitement to intrigue and fraud and falsehood. It is a 
 folly unknown in private business, and it deprives public employ¬ 
 ment of that incentive to diligence and efficiency, and destroys 
 that mainspring of honorable self respect, the peaceful conscious¬ 
 ness that success depends upon merit and not on favor, and that 
 fidelity and competency are the guarantee of continued employ¬ 
 ment and promotion. After the discussions of recent years the 
 deliberate re-enactment by Congress of the four years’ law would 
 plainly contemplate and sanction a clean sweep of the service 
 with every party change of administration as fast as official terms 
 should expire. The President would be invited by the law itself 
 to reward his own partisans as every day placed offices at his 
 disposal. The Civil Service would become, with the express 
 approval of Congress, a mere treasury of party spoils. 
 
 The Edmunds bill is in fact a bill to enact and legitimate all 
 
*7 
 
 ,the evils of a clean sweep. Would they be obviated by the 
 extraordinary provision of judicial suspension and removal, which 
 is another proposition of the bill ? I think not. This provision 
 would at most prevent only the arbitrary dismissal of incumbents 
 during their terms. But it would not affect the essential evil of a 
 four years’ law, which is automatic removal, removal by the 
 expiry of the term. If dismissal without reason during a brief 
 term is wrong, dismissal without reason at the end of such a term 
 cannot be justified upon any sound business principle. Reform, 
 as we understand it, seeks to take the whole non-political public 
 service out of politics. But the Edmunds bill thrusts it into 
 politics. There is nothing in the provision for judicial suspension 
 or removal during the term which would restrain the mischief in 
 the least degree. The service would be necessarily partisan, and 
 a partisan service would be what it has always been, the most 
 despotic, unscrupulous, and debasing of party machines. It is 
 true that the present reform law leaves the executive choice 
 beyond the classified service entirely untrammelled. But the 
 spirit of the law forbids the abuse both of the power of removal 
 and of appointment throughout the unclassified service, while its 
 warmest friends seek to strengthen the reform of which it is an 
 active agent by the repeal of the four years’ law. In the situation 
 which the Edmunds bill would invite the only restraint upon the 
 complete prostitution of patronage to party would be the chance 
 of a reform President. But this would be but a momentary 
 relief, and the chance of a reform President would certainly not 
 be increased by the unrestricted power of filling the whole public 
 service with active personal partisans. When Madame de Stael 
 said to the Emperor Alexander that a despotism may be bene- 
 
i8 
 
 ficient, he answered Yes, Madame, but it would be only a happy 
 accident. The reform of the Civil Service must not be left to a 
 happy accident. 
 
 But while the method of removal which the bill provides 
 would not remedy the immense evil which the bill promotes, what 
 would be the effect upon the discipline and efficiency of the 
 service itself? The bill provides for removal for cause to be 
 determined by judicial authority. But such a law would logically 
 and inevitably affect the whole service. If the President could 
 remove a postmaster only for cause satisfactory to a court of law, 
 it would be manifestly unjust to permit the postmaster to remove 
 a clerk without cause determined with similar care. The result 
 would be intolerable. The right of counsel and the forms of law 
 would be invoked, the whole legal machinery of mandamuses, 
 injunctions, certioraris, and the rules of evidence would be put in 
 play to displace a slovenly postmaster, or on the other hand to 
 keep an incompetent clerk at his desk or a sleepy watchman on 
 his beat. Cause for the removal of a small collector, or a letter 
 carrier in the post office, or an accountant in the Custom House 
 would be presented with all the pomp of impeachment, and 
 established like a high crime and misdemeanor. The discipline 
 of the service upon which its efficiency depends would be ruined. 
 If appointing officers, from the President to the head of a bureau, 
 were obliged to prove negligence, or insolence, or want of quick¬ 
 ness, or any of the myriad forms of inefficiency in a subordinate 
 as he would prove a charge of theft or arson, the officer’s good 
 nature would recoil, and there would be no removals except for 
 offenses of which the penal law takes cognizance. The superior 
 officers would endure much and long rather than bring a suit 
 
J 9 
 
 against a subordinate for unpunctuality or laziness; official 
 discipline would disappear, and the efficiency of the service would 
 be fatally impaired. Moreover, when removal should depend 
 upon the judgment of a court, removal would be always and 
 justly regarded as a stigma upon character. Removal for cause, 
 therefore, if the cause were to be decided by any authority but 
 that of the superior officer, instead of improving would swiftly 
 and enormously enhance the cost by ruining the efficiency of 
 the public service, by destroying subordination and making every 
 lazy and worthless officer or clerk twice as careless and incom¬ 
 petent as before. 
 
 I do not indeed forget the wanton outrages of removal in the 
 public service, nor the unhappiness and despair which they pro¬ 
 duce. Undoubtedly the larger part of the personal suffering and 
 injustice arising from the vicious system of treating the public 
 service as party spoils is due to arbitrary partisan removal. This 
 wrong is not disposed of by saying flippantly that the persons 
 removed have had their share and ought to give way for others. 
 This is merely pleading the absurdity known as rotation in office, 
 which as a principle or a practice in the minor service means 
 nothing whatever. It is a phrase implying an equal sharing of 
 public places among the people. But there is no such thing as 
 sharing the public places because there are not enough for all. If 
 everybody is to be paid out of the public treasury for doing his 
 political duty it is obviously absurd to permit anybody to be paid 
 for four successive years. That would be a wicked monopoly. 
 Even with a term of four months we should not all get a chance 
 at the treasury, and the four years cormorants would evidently 
 take the bread out of the mouths of the rest of us. If Tim is 
 
20 
 
 entitled to a place because he has worked for the party so is Tom. 
 And upon this principle of rotation if there are not places for 
 both of them, all the Tims who are appointed ought to divide 
 their wages with all the Toms for whom there are no places. 
 When Silas Wright called rotation in office a cardinal Republican 
 principle let us hope that he meant rotation in offices for which 
 the constitution provides the opportunity of rotation, and not in 
 the vast multitude of subordinate employments in which equal 
 rotation is absolutely impossible, and in which if it were possible 
 it would be absurd. 
 
 The doctrine of rotation in office is justified by its advocates 
 upon two grounds : first, that there should be no vested right in 
 office; and second, that in public offices there is always a 
 tendency to mere routine, which operates as a kind of dry rot of 
 official vigor and efficiency. But both pleas vanish in a system 
 where the power of removal is unrestricted. No man holds a 
 vested right in public office who holds as in private business at 
 the will of a superior, and the remedy for inefficiency lies, as in 
 all other well-conducted business, on the responsible head of the 
 office. When it is once determined that public business shall be 
 transacted like private business the question of removal will need 
 no such grotesque solution as that of the Edmunds bill. The 
 question of removing a private book-keeper or engineer is not 
 referred to a court of law, and when a merchant’s clerk is 
 inefficient or unsatisfactory and is consequently dismissed he does 
 not argue before a United States Court his right to hold his place 
 for three years or for three days longer. In re-enacting the four, 
 years’ term, thereby sanctioning the abuses known as a clean 
 sweep and partisan rotation in office, and in separating the 
 
21 
 
 executive power of removal from the executive power of appoint¬ 
 ment, the bill of Mr. Edmunds violates what we believe to be 
 cardinal conditions of thorough reform in the Civil Service. 
 
 There is one other plea for rotation in office which is the 
 final defence of the system that makes spoils of the public service. 
 It is asserted that our Government is a government of party, and 
 that thorough party organization and effective party diligence 
 would be impossible without the reward of place. It is contended 
 that the spur of party ambition in great party leaders, in Pitt or 
 Fox, in Clay or Calhoun, in Gladstone or Disraeli, is the desire 
 of reaching great place to direct an imperial policy. If Clay 
 may properly aspire to be President and claim the Presidency as 
 a reward of illustrious party service, why should the same desire 
 and the same claim in a small and humble degree be denied to 
 the follower of Clay who cannot make a speech, but who can 
 bring out the voters ? This is a plausible plea, but even when 
 sincere it totally misconceives the facts. In a free country 
 undoubtedly political ambition is the ambition to govern, and 
 when great questions arise and the country divides upon great 
 policies of government those who by resistless argument and 
 burning appeal successfully mould public opinion are naturally 
 placed where they can make that conviction law and enforce it in 
 administration. This is the legitimate result of the successful 
 appeal of political leaders to the country. But neither Clay nor 
 Van Buren nor any other American citizen could claim the 
 Presidency on any ground whatever, and to argue that a man 
 who brings out the voters and “ treats the boys ” and “ runs the 
 machine ” should be set to appraising muslins, or weighing spices, 
 or keeping books in a public office upon the same principle that a 
 
22 
 
 party leader is called to organize the measures of the policy which 
 he has proposed and which the country has approved, is to insult 
 the public common sense. 
 
 The legitimate and healthy contest of parties in a republic 
 is not to be deprecated. It is the controversy of principles, the 
 argument of policies, the great contention to which the political 
 genius of the English-speaking race especially inclines. But 
 patronage destroys legitimate party action, and the reckless party 
 spirit, against which Washington bequeated us his last and most 
 solemn warning, constantly strives to substitute personal and 
 private ends for public purposes, and to make party contest a 
 struggle for the public money in the emoluments of petty place 
 instead of a great appeal to the country for a public policy. 
 Thus the spoils system instead of promoting the just objects of 
 party degrades and demoralizes party itself, and destroys its true 
 function. To say that the distribution of non-political places as 
 rewards among a few parasites of politicians whom the parasites 
 hold in higher place, is essential to party, is false because it 
 destroys the legitimate reason of party. But to plead that it is 
 indispensable to general and active interest in politics is to argue 
 against facts and experience as well as against reason. 
 
 The first great party change of administration in our own 
 history followed the election of Jefferson. In less than ten years 
 this party had prevailed over the party of Washington and Jay 
 and Hamilton, and was thoroughly organized, enthusiastic, and 
 triumphant. But it had advanced to national supremacy, not 
 only without the control of the patronage, but without the hope 
 of it. Not only had it no such excuse for assessing or such 
 means of disciplining its members, but there was no promise or 
 
23 
 
 general expectation of obtaining place by a clean sweep of 
 Federal office-holders. “ Some removals,” said Jefferson, “ I 
 know must be made. They must be as few as possible, done 
 gradually, and bottomed on some malversation or inherent dis¬ 
 qualification. Good men to whom there is no objection but a 
 difference of political opinion, practised on only so far as the right 
 of a private citizen will justify, are not proper subjects of removal.” 
 These were Jeffersonian principles. They are absolutely and 
 directly opposed to the Jacksonian principle, to the victors belong 
 the spoils of the enemy. These are the principles of Washington 
 as well as Jefferson; the principles of true Democracy not in the 
 party sense but in that sense in which every true American is a 
 Democrat. Reform in the first party change of administration 
 did not mean turning out honest and efficient postmasters, and 
 night watchmen and messengers as rascals. It meant strict con¬ 
 struction of the Constitution, restriction of national powers, the 
 fostering of State sovereignty, reduction of taxes, and economy 
 and simplicity in government. It did not mean a clean sweep 
 of minor places, for there were fewer places upon the national 
 register when Jefferson was inaugurated than there are now upon 
 that of the New York Custom House alone. That single fact 
 proves the absurd untruth of the assertion that the prospect of 
 spoils is the spring of party activity. 
 
 The election which just aroused and shaken the British 
 Empire from sea to sea, and which the London. Times said was to 
 determine the most momentous issue ever decided by a 
 general election in England, is a signal illustration of the 
 legitimate contest of party. It was a tremendous controversy 
 upon a great national question. Every intelligent Englishman, 
 
24 
 
 and Scotchman, and Irishman was as earnestly interested 
 in that election as every patriotic American was absorbed in 
 the great contentions that preceded and accompanied our 
 war for the Union. The whole world watched the conflict 
 and anticipated with eagerness the result. Does any American 
 suppose that it was a struggle for the post offices, and that it 
 would have been a very languid election except for the prospect 
 of small clerkships, messengerships, and a clean sweep ? Mr. 
 Gladstone answered him long ago, “ We limit to a few scores of 
 persons the removals and appointments on these occasions,” and 
 again, “ We have abandoned that power (of filling the minor 
 places), we have thrown every one of them open to competition;” 
 and he adds : “ And in order that the public service might be, 
 indeed, the public service; in order that we might not have 
 among the civil officers of the State that which we complained of 
 in the army, namely, that the service was not the property of the 
 nation but of the officers, we have now been enabled to remove 
 the barriers of nomination, patronage, jobbing, favoritism in 
 whatever form; and every man belonging to the people of 
 England, if he so please to fit his children for the position of com¬ 
 peting for places in the public service, may do it entirely 
 irrespective of the question what is his condition in life, or the 
 amount of means with which he may happen to be or not to be 
 blessed.” 
 
 These words describe the great purpose of this League, a 
 purpose which with every day is more widely approved by the 
 country, and is therefore constantly nearer accomplishment. 
 There is nothing so essentially Republican, nothing so distinct¬ 
 ively Democratic as Civil-Service Reform. The measures which 
 
2 5 
 
 the practical progress of reform now requires are the rapid and 
 steady extension of the classified service into every branch of the 
 administration to which its principles properly apply; the repeal 
 of the four years’ law and the summary removal of officers who 
 evade or defy the letter or the spirit of the reform law, or inter¬ 
 fere in nominations and elections. The unmistakable evidence of 
 determined purpose in the superior officer is felt by every cabin 
 boy on the ship, every private in the ranks, and it is the 
 most effective moral tonic, whether in an actual battle or in 
 the peaceful controversies of reform. Every man, whether in 
 public place or in private life, who believes that a thorough 
 correction of the dangerous abuses of patronage is indispensable, 
 and who holds that a system of the public service which 
 was wise and practicable under President Washington is 
 practicable and wise under President Cleveland or any other 
 President, but who comprehends also the necessary bitterness and 
 tenacity of the contest in which we are engaged, may well 
 ponder the remark of the Yankee to his antagonist, “ Wal, I 
 ’spose you’re pretty ugly, but I cal’late I’m a darned site uglier 
 If there is any cabin boy on our ship, or any private in our 
 ranks, who is not full of that spirit and who does not already 
 hear the bugles of victory in bis heart, I do not know where to 
 look for him. 
 

 . 
 
. 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Daniel Webster and the Spoils System. An extract from Senator 
 Bayard’s oration at Dartmouth College, June, 1882. Per copy, 3 cts. 
 Per 100, . . . . . . . $1 $o 
 
 The “Pendleton Bill.” Bill to Regulate and Improve the Civil Service 
 of the United States, as approved. Per copy, 3 cts. Per 100, $1 50 
 
 The Civil Service of Cities, Police and Fire Departments. A 
 
 Report to the C.-S. R. A. of N. Y. made by request of the State Civil- 
 Service Commission. Per copy, - - - - 5 cts. 
 
 What has been done in New York and may be done elsewhere. 
 
 Per copy, 1 ct. Per 100, - - - - 30 cts. 
 
 The Reform of the Civil Service. Per copy, 1 ct. Per too, 30 cts. 
 What is the Civil Service? (Card for distribution). 
 
 Annual Report of the C.-S. R. A. of N. Y., May, 1883 . Per copy, 3 cts. 
 The same for 1884 Per copy, - - - - 3 cts. 
 
 The same for 1885. Per copy, - - - 3 cts. 
 
 The same for 1886. Per copy, 3 cts. 
 
 Some Questions for Voters to Consider. (Circular for distribution.) 
 Constitution and By-Laws of New York Association. 
 
 Also a few copies of some early publications. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 Civil Service in Great Britain. By Dorman B. Eaton. Per copy. 25 cts. 
 The Competitive Test. By Edward M. Shepard. Per copy, 5 cts. 
 
 The Meaning of Civil-Service Reform. By Edward O. Graves', 
 Per copy, - - - - - -3 cts. 
 
 Report of the TJ. S. Civil-Service Commission, 1884. 
 
 The same for 1885- 
 The Same for 1886. 
 
 Report of the N. Y. Civil-Service Commission, 1884. 
 
 The same for 1885. 
 
 The same for 1886. 
 
 Also a few other miscellaneous publications. 
 
 Orders for the publications will be filled by William Potts, Secretary, 
 35 Liberty St., New York. 
 
PRESIDENT. 
 
 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 
 
 SECRETARY. 
 
 WILLIAM POTTS. 
 
 TREASURER. 
 
 IRA BURSLEY. 
 
 
 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 
 
 WM. A. AIKEN, 
 
 CHARLES J. BONAPARTE, 
 SILAS W. BURT, 
 
 JOHN JAY; 
 
 A. R. MACDONOUGH, 
 
 W. W. MONTGOMERY, 
 SHERMAN S. ROGERS, 
 
 WILLIAM CARY SANGER, 
 CARL SCHURZ, 
 
 EDWARD M. SHEPARD, 
 MOORFIELD STOREY, 
 EVERETT P. WHEELER, 
 FREDERIC W. WHITRIDGE, 
 MORRILL WYMAN, JR. 
 
 The formation of local Associations in every locality 
 where a nucleus can be found is much to be desired, and 
 the Secretary of the League will be glad to assist any move¬ 
 ment in that direction, Each Association, when formed, 
 should establish an official connection with the National 
 League. The details of the organization having been 
 furnished to the Executive Committee through the Secre¬ 
 tary, that Committee is authorized to admit the association 
 to membership in the League, whereupon it is entitled to 
 elect a member of the General Committee and a represen¬ 
 tative Vice-President. The Secretary should thereafter be 
 kept informed of the progress of the work, and of changes 
 of officers as they may occur. 
 
 Address • ' 
 
 WILLIAM POTTS, 
 
 Secretary , 
 
 ‘ ' L N0 * 35 LIBERTY STREET, NEW YORK.